Oppression and Meaninglessness

Here’s a chance to document something in real time. Earlier in the evening, I took a nap that turned into fours of my sleeping. In the dreams I had, a sense of meaninglessness and oppression that I experience in my life appeared and appeared strongly. In waking life, this feeling is minimized, likely through various mental tricks I use.

Imagine an icy-hot fire gripping the chest, especially the top part of the heart or above the heart and at the corresponding area on the spinal cord, and imagine all sense of meaning being taken from reality; this is the experience I’m going through as I type these words. The world seems both empty and oppressive, grey, and stripped of purpose.

Naturally, this is a Veil of God. This isn’t permanent. My immediate thoughts are that these relates to me on an ego-level, of something unfulfilled or missing in my life, but further ideas that appear make me wonder if it’s more than that, if maybe this is part of the transformative process.

I didn’t bargain for having only negative experiences in transformation, but good grief, that seems to be the vast majority of them. I suppose in the end I will have felt every possible emotion until the end of its existence.

Another immediate reaction in the middle of the clenched-up-chest experience is to not look for God, to not say the dhikr, but it is absolutely crucial in these moments to do just that, to keep a focus on the Divine, however we may encounter him.

But what does one do when the Divine is encountered as meaningfulness, and there’s suddenly no meaning? Ah, here we have the problem, and the only solution is to continue with the action as though we know the Divine is there.

Here, I have a glimpse of what will lay beyond all unconscious oppression, in that the peace that will follow will enable both confidence and a general contentment with life. But how to get there? Well, in a sort of honest manner, one cannot get there on one’s own, as it is ultimately contingent upon God and not one’s self. But many mystics say that the Grace descends only after have made every effort on this end, and I’m making a great deal of effort and finding every way I can to turn to God, whatever it may be.

Categorically, I can’t place God anywhere, and I’m even having trouble using the word “God” because of the negative connotations that I have with the word. Certainly I know what I mean, but does everyone else know what I mean? That’s always the question.

I think for most Christians, God is first conceived of in personal terms, e.g., as a person or entity, and only secondarily does the entity contain ideas such as the Supreme Beauty or Absolute Reality, whereas I would conceive of God in the opposite manner: the Ultimate Meaning or the Truth that is translated into imagery of an entity. Yet I cannot mislead anyone in saying that God is a mere abstraction, as I would argue God is quite real and beyond our ordinary understanding. Moreover, many great Christians would certainly be in agreement with me, even if they are somehow considered unorthodox for their views.

The oppression in my chest seems to have lessened, but does that mean something good? Does it not make me less reliant on God? Maybe I should be grateful for the afflictions that befall me, but that’s a difficult thing to do.

I have trouble when people say we should be grateful for our suffering, because many people don’t understand that the person who is grateful for suffering has achieved a certain level of consciousness (or be given it, if not achieved it), and that the person has an understanding of the suffering that someone else simply doesn’t have.